Slashdot Mirror
Linux on the Vomit Comet
Buddha writes
"Ever dream about floating around? We're going to do
it, with Linux.
Everybody's seen Apollo 13, right? All those shots of Tom
Hanks floating around were actually him floating around!
The crew rented NASA's Vomit Comet to pull it off.
We're a group of 4 MIT students, and we're training to fly
on the Vomit Comet -- we're slated to fly in one week. Our
testing software is all written for Linux. Follow us as we
get ready.
"
no, really. its not terribly exciting... not much
different than floating in water. the motion
sickness drugs they give you are something else
though (scopalimine?). i was tripping.
I got through...it's not slashdotted, and it's not that interesting, either
nah, we would rather work on more sophisticated stuff - when we get rich, we hire people like YOU do make our HTML pretty.
-MIT AC
damn straight! these kids are more worried about pretty pictures and 'buttons' instead of the importance of the contents on the page. pathetic i tell yah!
To get around all these
problems, we have written hooks to play a
sound file through Raster's Enlightenment
Sound Daemon. This daemon will also allow
us to play two sounds simultaneously (the
daemon will mix the sounds on the fly) -- we
can use this to overlay two spatial sounds for
the tests.
If not, i hope your plane crashes and you all
die! Proprietary projects stink!
Uhm, right, anyway...
Grow up.
In Space, No-one Can Hear You Scream (tm)
If they take the time to measure the HRTFs of the test subjects before they go up and properly filter the signals they are sending to their headphones, they will, in essense, be creating the reflections and interference patterns that the pinnae creates.
The technique is used extensively in auralization, where you "listen" to a room before it is built. A useful beginning set of web links is available at http://www.acs.psu.edu/users/smithsh/research.html
I guess I'm the only one that lovingly refers to him in that way. But feel free to join me in calling him that!
W S B
I thought it was Harvard people who hired MIT people?
Anyone else notice they're doing this with PowerBooks?
Does this mean they're got LinuxPPC running on them?
Of course, the objective is not to puke, hense the choice of linux for the experiments.
Umm... I went to the page and read that their
software was written in Java. So does that mean
they wrote platform specific Java code? I sure
hope not. That would be very un-geek. I bet they
were just trying to get all those slashdot
readers who are obsessed with Linux and other
similar nonsense to go over there and have a look.
Why else would they mention Linux in their post?
It's irrelevant to their research, especially if
they wrote all their stuff in Java. I mean, hell...
they might as well go over to that pro-Windows site
www.dotslash.org and say they wrote it all for
Windows.
Gimme a break folks. Can't you see that they're
only preying on Slashdot readers' inability to
ignore any posting concerning Linux.
Regards.
What are you so paranoid about?
Are they going to "get" something from you? You used the word "preying" -- you're clean out of your mind!
Chill out, baby. Hang loose. It ain't so bad, really.
It's a neat page. It's interesting. Deal.
gee...now how come you found that offensive? fit into that category?
Quote of the week, IMHO. It's a few paragraphs down the page.
Ever heard of LinuxPPC? Well, that's what we're using. Plus, Apple GAVE us the G3, so can we
complain? Would YOU complain? Free computer
come on....
It is platform specific Java code :)
we're interfacing to GPM to grab mouse events so we don't have to use X (a source of more instability), and we have hooks to esd to multiplex sound...
and plus -- we don't want to have to reboot the machine in mid flight. like one reader said, if we wanted to puke, we would be using NT.
Idiot.
Spend some time learning about Java.
Get Debian 2.1; get JDK 1.2 for Linux.
Hear the 3D sound.
Then, don't waste our time.
Linux's new slogan?
Thats it !
I was thinking that something's wrong here, till
I read this posting.
The little creeps. fcsk them i say
duh.
This is one of those "gawd, it HAS to be a troll" posts... but it had to be said. "They said it ran on Linux but they're taking an [Alpha|Sparc|UltraSparc|M68K|PalmPilot], hmmm..."
Remember that what's inside of you doesn't matter because nobody can see it.
I believe one of the reasons they're going to observe decreased sound localization is that binaural methods really don't work. From a technical standpoint, you have two transducers so you should be able to reproduce every sound with two speakers. From a biological standpoint, the shape of the ear causes secondary reflections that actually help us localize sound as coming from behind, in front, up, or down. Headphones don't reproduce those secondary reflections and hence the existance of 5:1 sound systems.
Wrong, but thanks for playing.
It's "the Enlightened Sound Daemon", and it has NOTHING to do with Rasterman och Enlightenment.
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All Glory To The Hypnotoad!
vomit comet...enlightenment themes...I get the connection :)
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Oh boy! Those flyboys are gonna are gonna have fun watching a bunch of MIT nerds turn green... hehehehe
.
You'd think students from MIT could make a better web page.
Check out the fscking "buttons". They use images where text would work much better. Not to mention they cover up the link location with javascript crap.
*sigh*
Don't bother looking at it.
This sig is false.
Funny. All the testing software is in Linux, yet they're takin up a G3... Hmm.
Hmm, a Powerbook G3series is very sturdy.
Have dropped one of a table.
Not a dent or scratch.
That totally kicks ass. I think the more we see Linux on unique systems like that and stuff like the more it will get it's name out. This is of course due to the power at hand and coustomizability. I set my mom up with SuSE 6.0 this weekend, and she likes Star Office 5. You gotta dig it! She was all worried, but now she likes it. I should make a page for getting computer retards to be able to use the computer. Linux easily gives you the ability t shield users from their own stupidity, and X can have a tailored interface so they don't ever see shit that confuses them. I've still got a lot of that to do. She still has to su root to shutdown. Mom doesn't care about leaving it on, she's too worried about a fire. I tried to soothe her. Anyhow, world domination is on the horizon my friends...Adventure ha! Excitement ha! A Jedi Craves not these things!
Well that's two students at UMIST who wanna do this...but we'd prob have tot hink of something to test...wonder if we could Win98 not to crash at 0G??
Steve
--
"You can have it fast.
You can have it cheap.
You can have it right.
Pick two..." Or pick Linux
So you got the first post. Wah...
:^)
Anyhoo, I just wanted to comment that what they're doing could actually have practical implications since the inner ear is hugely affected by weightless-ness. In addition, I damn sure want someone to hear me screaming if I'm floating in a space vessel.
--Al
up to 50 minutes of weightlessness, but you make
it up in 1.8 g sessions. very sick indeed.
-- these are only opinions and they might not be mine.
Was there anything interesting on the page before it got slashdotted?
Why doesn't UMIST (my university) ever let me do that, maybe if I asked nicely enough they would let me?
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My sometimes helpful blog
I know what we can do :)
;-)
See what happens to the MSS building when we drop large quantities of explosives on it from zero gravity. We may even get a beautification grant from the Council
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My sometimes helpful blog